Two-time Olympic medalist Cody Miller boasts over 175,000 YouTube subscribers and now has launched his own NFT marketplace with virtual experiences.
Swimmer Cody Miller won two medals at the 2016 Rio Games: a bronze in the 100-meter breaststroke and a gold as part of the 4×100 medley relay team that set an Olympic record. He’s also earned another six medals in short- and long-course world championships, setting a few individual American records and relay world records in the process.
Miller, 30, graduated from Indiana University and continues to train in the Indianapolis area. After Rio, he started a YouTube channel of swimming-centric content that has attracted more than 175,000 subscribers. Last week, Miller launched his own NFT marketplace as part of a new collaboration between Kyro Digital and Veritone. Those who buy the blockchain-backed collectible photos also receive additional access to private events, video tutorials and exclusive merchandise.
On his prior interest in Web3 . . .
Pretty minimal, dude, pretty minimal. I mean, I’ve got friends that are NFT nuts who are like, ‘You should have your own NFT.’ And I’ve always been like, ‘Well, I don’t know a whole lot.’ But the functionality of [Kyro] is cool. But I would not call myself an expert.
On wanting to launch this project . . .
It’s more about the functionality of it. I mean, it’s one thing to sell an NFT. It’s another thing to provide a fan an experience or something that’s slightly personalized that they can get something positive out of it, whether that’s a conversation or asking questions or just learning. And then in addition to that, having something that you take away that is yours to keep forever. So in our example, the NFT is your digital ticket to something, but that NFT, you get to keep forever. And, dude, we live in a digital world. My friends care more about their digital assets than they do their real-life stuff, like their Fortnite skins and whatnot.
On the imagery of the NFTs . . .
I selected the photos, and I was pretty involved. Obviously, I wanted to like whatever it was that we were providing for people. So I thought that some of the photos that we chose were pretty cool looking, like the one of me that kind of looks like I’m flying through the air, but I’m actually underwater in a pool. That’s one of my favorite photos.
On becoming a content creator . . .
That’s kind of the whole reason I started my YouTube channel: I’ve always been an athlete, and I never really invested my energy into doing something really creative. Then, after the Olympics, I just felt like I needed to do something a little different and kind of flex a different muscle. If you were to classify me as like a content creator, you need to be somewhat creative.
On whether he had a plan when he started the YouTube channel . . .
No, it just totally snowballed. I’ve been a lifelong film fan. I basically put that on the shelf and chose the route of ‘I’m going to try and be an Olympic swimmer,’ and I invested more of my time and energy into my athletic career opposed to film school or something like that. And so after the Olympics, I was just like, ‘Maybe I just want to learn how to edit film. Let me just learn how to do this.’
And in my research process, I came across the world of vloggers and YouTube, and I was fascinated by it. And I was like, ‘Shoot, maybe I could make one of those — just a video, like a small little swimming documentary,’ you know? And then I was like, ‘Well, maybe I just do this in vlog form, just a 10-minute video.’ I didn’t have a plan, and it just snowballed and just grew into this thing. And it’s been pretty fun, man.
On how he maps out his content plans . . .
It varies depending on the time of year. Sometimes during the year, if there are a lot of big swimming-related events, then I know that those would be prime opportunities to make really cool videos for. So there’s a lot more planning that goes into that. This week, just coming back from vacation, I have no plan, just [asking myself], ‘What day am I going to the gym and what day might I go to the pool and let’s put something together and make something fun.’
Both [plans] are equally fun. I like more thought-out [videos], coming up with a premise like eating a bunch of Taco Bell before I go and try to do this really hard swim practice. A lot of thought goes into what that’s going to look like and how that’s going to turn into a digestible piece of YouTube content. But I also like the idea of, OK, I wake up one morning, and today I have to make a video. How do I take my normal routine and then turn that into something that is not boring and fun and interesting. And so that’s also a unique challenge.
On the swimming calendar right now . . .
Right now we’re in a lull. There’s not a lot of big meets coming up. I mean, we’ve got a couple of World Cups. We’re in the middle of the [Olympic] quad coming off of, in the swim world, it’s been the never-ending season because, with the Olympics pushed back, you had three world championships sandwiched together in a very small amount of time. And now we’re coming off of that. So everyone’s just like taking a deep breath. So I’m in more of a laid-back, relaxed time right now, which is different and new, because most of my life, it’s just been grind, grind, grind, grind.
A post shared by Cody Miller (@codymiller)
On how he views his competitive swimming career right now . . .
I consider myself more of a master swimmer opposed to an elite, Olympic hopeful swimmer right now. I’ve got two kids. I’m not trying to swim 30 hours a week right now. And I don’t know if I want to do that for the next Olympics. It’s just where my priorities are. But I still love swimming. And I’m still very, very active. It’s just, I don’t want to invest as much time into it. But I still like making the videos, and I’ll be competing. We actually have a pretty big meet, the Indianapolis World Cup, in about two weeks. So just up the road for me, so that’s cool. But nothing like crazy major. It’s pretty relaxed. Finally.
On tracking his sleep . . .
I did the Whoop thing for a while. I certainly see the benefits of it, I really do. But I also think that there’s some negative side effects of that as well, like constantly knowing. As an athlete, if I was in a state where I thought I was doing everything I possibly could to maximize my performance —like, say, I go to bed at 8:30 — and then I wake up the next morning and it says, ‘Hey, my recovery is only 65%.’ That would mess with my head. I didn’t like that. And so I didn’t like knowing all that data all the time. And now, especially once I had my first kid and my sleep went to total garbage, I was like, ‘I don’t I know. It’s not good. I don’t need to know this stuff.’
On analyzing his swimming technique . . .
Where we train, we have these underwater review stations set up on every lane. So you’ve got to imagine this: an Olympic-sized pool with 30 25-yard lanes. There’s 30 lanes, and we’ve got an underwater camera system in almost every single lane. And they actually just installed new TVs on these rolling systems, so we’ve got 55-inch screen TVs right out of water in front of the lane. So every time you swim into the wall, the camera is set to about a 15-second delay, so you can see your whole last lap as you swim into the wall. So underwater video is a big thing.
On the growing adoption of heart rate wearables in the water . . .
The other thing that is becoming more popular is the heart rate tracking because we spend so much time training the aerobic system, and it’s hard to tell when you’re in certain heart rate [zones]. Now wearable technology has gotten much better. My team uses a little [Polar] chip that you wear on your swim cap that you keep on your temple. We wear a cap, and it just stays there.
It gives you an accurate, real-time reading of where your target heart rate zone is. So we might swim for two hours, but coach only wants you in certain heart rates for certain times. Now we’re able to train more accurately and have a better understanding of what we’re actually doing. So that’s becoming more popular. That’s really progressing the ability for programs to train more effectively.
Photo credits: Adam Pretty/Getty Images
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